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118 points by luckysahaf 10y ago

metalliqaz 10y ago
Louis Scarcella will not face prosecution. God, that makes me sick.
- mathattack 10y ago
  For better or worse, sometimes to change the system you need to avoid vengeance. This is why many terrible dictators are allowed to live in peace in exile.
  - efaref 10y ago
    I'm surprised he doesn't live in fear of one of his ex-convicts getting out and going full Dexter on him. Perhaps he really believes his made-up lies.
    - gingerrr 10y ago
      You're probably right that he believes his own lies. The type of people to exclaim "I've never done anything wrong in my entire life" (as Scarcella does in the article) are usually the biggest buyers of their own bullshit. It takes serious cognitive dissonance to be able to say something like that with a straight face.
      - eric_h 10y ago
        > The type of people to exclaim "I've never done anything wrong in my entire life" If anyone ever said those words to me, I would do my best to never, ever, interact with them. It's prime facia a false statement, and anyone who can say it with conviction (assuming they are an adult) must necessarily be a liar. I've done plenty of things wrong, I've broken the law countless times (which, really is nothing special, literally everyone has, but I've done it knowingly and willfully), I've inadvertently burned bridges (figuratively, of course) and offended people deeply that I never meant to. No one is perfect, anyone who says (and appears to believe) that they are is a menace to society.
  - metalliqaz 10y ago
    prosecution != vengeance
  - JamesSwift 10y ago
    A prosecution is justice, not vengeance.
    - Jtsummers 10y ago
      That's not an assertion that can be backed (in the US at least) by the facts as a universally true statement.
pilom 10y ago
What can you do? 1. If you are on a jury, remember that it is FAR FAR FAR worse to imprison an innocent person than to let a guilty person free, regardless of the crime. Listen to evidence and make a personal decision about the defendant's guilt with that in mind and don't let any other jurors push you around. 2. Donate to your local chapter of the Innocence Project. 3. Encourage your local DA office to form or expand a version of the Conviction Review Unit mentioned in the article.
- kiliantics 10y ago
  If I were on a jury in the US, I'd vote the defendant not guilty no matter what the evidence. Prison here (and almost everywhere) is a human rights catastrophe and no person deserves it.
  - crispyambulance 10y ago
    Don't worry, plenty of folks already do that in cities which are overflowing with uncontrollable violent crime and have neighborhoods so neglected they look like they've been bombed (eg where I lived for 12 years, Baltimore).
  - gwkoehler 10y ago
    So basically, you believe dangerous people should remain in society? Habitual criminals should continue to terrorize innocents such as yourself and your family, and you wouldn't even call the police?
    - cmdrfred 10y ago
      In my state the moment one of those people enter your home uninvited you have a right to execute said criminal. I won't call the police on them, but I'm not going to let those sorts of people back out into society either. That said I'd vote not guilty for any victimless crime.
    - justratsinacoat 10y ago
      >So basically, you believe dangerous people should remain in society? >Habitual criminals should continue to terrorize innocents such as yourself and your family, and you wouldn't even call the police? One of these sentences is a reasonable, if a bit reductive, summary of the GP's point. The other is wild hyperbole. Fully half of the comment I'm replying to is total nonsense, putting words in another's mouth, disingenuously representing another's opinion in the hope of making that person seem monstrous. To what end, gwkoehler? Is your position so tenuous that you feel you must misrepresent your opponent's? If your comments weren't an attempt at a counterargument, is it really so important to tell kiliantics that you disagree with his opinion and wish to paint it as unwise?
spdustin 10y ago
I wish jurors would understand their role is to protect the innocent from prosecutorial overreach, not rubber-stamp the prosecution's assertion that a law has been broken. They have more power than the judge (who is really just supposed to enforce procedural rules and maintain order) because they can vote against the law! Imagine, a jury filled with jurors who know that: A) They can't be punished for their verdict B) They can, and should, consider the rule of law, and not just the veracity of the evidence as is often directed by the judge C) They have the authority to say "okay, the evidence shows the defendant is guilty, but we don't think the law is a just one, so we're going to acquit." Sometimes, that power is used for good (not convicting those who helped runaway slaves, for example, or not convicting minor drug offenses, keeping our disgustingly overcrowded county jails from adding to their rolls) and sometimes not (the officers acquitted despite video evidence of their beating Rodney King). It is, however, an exemplar of the checks-and-balances meant to constrain a government that may otherwise overstep its boundaries to violate a citizen's rights. While the rights afforded to a jury are in danger of changing, they haven't changed yet, and potential jurors everywhere in the US should read up more on their rights and responsibilities as a juror.
- burkaman 10y ago
  I don't think it's correct to say jury nullification is part of the designed system of checks and balances. It's really an unintended side effect of the jury system, since jurors have to be immune from any punishment or the system wouldn't work. The intended checks on judicial overreach are the legislative branch repealing laws and impeaching judges, and the executive branch issuing pardons. I would call jury nullification a form of civil disobedience. That doesn't mean it's wrong, it's just not really operating inside the judicial framework. There's a reason the Supreme Court has consistently held that the defense does not have the right to inform the jury of their right to nullify.
  - PantaloonFlames 10y ago
    > It's really an unintended side effect of the jury system, since jurors have to be immune from any punishment or the system wouldn't work. or in other words, an intended side-effect.
diego_moita 10y ago
To me this all speaks "zeitgeist", the mindset of an era. This was New York in the 80s and 90s, the Rudy Giuliani era, "no broken windows", tough on crime mentality. The town was traumatized by more than a thousand murders every year. Everyone was desperate for convicts, from the voters to the attorneys, the politicians and jurors. No one had patience to "due process". It was a war. That era has been praised as a victory for law enforcement. Black Lives Matter and others are now showing the real cost of it. No wonder Giuliani freaks out about BLM.
- PantaloonFlames 10y ago
  "tough on crime" is not the same as "abandon due process". I challenge your view that jurors and voters would approve of abandoning due process. Sure they wanted convictions of criminals. But not at the cost of faked confessions, lying under oauth, false testimony by law enforcement. It's easy to see that leads to chaos. No one signed up for that, except the watchmen.
zeveb 10y ago
> Scarcella has never been prosecuted for his alleged malfeasance; the statute of limitations for perjury is five years. There's the problem. There shouldn't be a statute of limitations on police malfeasance any more than there is one on murder. Police officers who perjure themselves to obtain convictions should be executed.
Mz 10y ago
Happily, I found this article more positive than the comments here make it sound. The system is changing. People are being exonerated. These injustices are getting press. Obviously, it would be nice if injustice never occurred. But injustices do occur and it is far worse when we would rather pretend it doesn't happen than to own up and do what we can to redress them.

Home Free

118 points by luckysahaf 10y ago

metalliqaz 10y ago

Louis Scarcella will not face prosecution. God, that makes me sick.

mathattack 10y ago
For better or worse, sometimes to change the system you need to avoid vengeance. This is why many terrible dictators are allowed to live in peace in exile.
- efaref 10y ago
  I'm surprised he doesn't live in fear of one of his ex-convicts getting out and going full Dexter on him. Perhaps he really believes his made-up lies.
  - gingerrr 10y ago
    You're probably right that he believes his own lies. The type of people to exclaim "I've never done anything wrong in my entire life" (as Scarcella does in the article) are usually the biggest buyers of their own bullshit. It takes serious cognitive dissonance to be able to say something like that with a straight face.
    - eric_h 10y ago
      > The type of people to exclaim "I've never done anything wrong in my entire life" If anyone ever said those words to me, I would do my best to never, ever, interact with them. It's prime facia a false statement, and anyone who can say it with conviction (assuming they are an adult) must necessarily be a liar. I've done plenty of things wrong, I've broken the law countless times (which, really is nothing special, literally everyone has, but I've done it knowingly and willfully), I've inadvertently burned bridges (figuratively, of course) and offended people deeply that I never meant to. No one is perfect, anyone who says (and appears to believe) that they are is a menace to society.
- metalliqaz 10y ago
  prosecution != vengeance
- JamesSwift 10y ago
  A prosecution is justice, not vengeance.
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    That's not an assertion that can be backed (in the US at least) by the facts as a universally true statement.

pilom 10y ago

What can you do? 1. If you are on a jury, remember that it is FAR FAR FAR worse to imprison an innocent person than to let a guilty person free, regardless of the crime. Listen to evidence and make a personal decision about the defendant's guilt with that in mind and don't let any other jurors push you around. 2. Donate to your local chapter of the Innocence Project. 3. Encourage your local DA office to form or expand a version of the Conviction Review Unit mentioned in the article.

kiliantics 10y ago
If I were on a jury in the US, I'd vote the defendant not guilty no matter what the evidence. Prison here (and almost everywhere) is a human rights catastrophe and no person deserves it.
- crispyambulance 10y ago
  Don't worry, plenty of folks already do that in cities which are overflowing with uncontrollable violent crime and have neighborhoods so neglected they look like they've been bombed (eg where I lived for 12 years, Baltimore).
- gwkoehler 10y ago
  So basically, you believe dangerous people should remain in society? Habitual criminals should continue to terrorize innocents such as yourself and your family, and you wouldn't even call the police?
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    In my state the moment one of those people enter your home uninvited you have a right to execute said criminal. I won't call the police on them, but I'm not going to let those sorts of people back out into society either. That said I'd vote not guilty for any victimless crime.
  - justratsinacoat 10y ago
    >So basically, you believe dangerous people should remain in society? >Habitual criminals should continue to terrorize innocents such as yourself and your family, and you wouldn't even call the police? One of these sentences is a reasonable, if a bit reductive, summary of the GP's point. The other is wild hyperbole. Fully half of the comment I'm replying to is total nonsense, putting words in another's mouth, disingenuously representing another's opinion in the hope of making that person seem monstrous. To what end, gwkoehler? Is your position so tenuous that you feel you must misrepresent your opponent's? If your comments weren't an attempt at a counterargument, is it really so important to tell kiliantics that you disagree with his opinion and wish to paint it as unwise?

spdustin 10y ago

I wish jurors would understand their role is to protect the innocent from prosecutorial overreach, not rubber-stamp the prosecution's assertion that a law has been broken. They have more power than the judge (who is really just supposed to enforce procedural rules and maintain order) because they can vote against the law! Imagine, a jury filled with jurors who know that: A) They can't be punished for their verdict B) They can, and should, consider the rule of law, and not just the veracity of the evidence as is often directed by the judge C) They have the authority to say "okay, the evidence shows the defendant is guilty, but we don't think the law is a just one, so we're going to acquit." Sometimes, that power is used for good (not convicting those who helped runaway slaves, for example, or not convicting minor drug offenses, keeping our disgustingly overcrowded county jails from adding to their rolls) and sometimes not (the officers acquitted despite video evidence of their beating Rodney King). It is, however, an exemplar of the checks-and-balances meant to constrain a government that may otherwise overstep its boundaries to violate a citizen's rights. While the rights afforded to a jury are in danger of changing, they haven't changed yet, and potential jurors everywhere in the US should read up more on their rights and responsibilities as a juror.

burkaman 10y ago
I don't think it's correct to say jury nullification is part of the designed system of checks and balances. It's really an unintended side effect of the jury system, since jurors have to be immune from any punishment or the system wouldn't work. The intended checks on judicial overreach are the legislative branch repealing laws and impeaching judges, and the executive branch issuing pardons. I would call jury nullification a form of civil disobedience. That doesn't mean it's wrong, it's just not really operating inside the judicial framework. There's a reason the Supreme Court has consistently held that the defense does not have the right to inform the jury of their right to nullify.
- PantaloonFlames 10y ago
  > It's really an unintended side effect of the jury system, since jurors have to be immune from any punishment or the system wouldn't work. or in other words, an intended side-effect.

diego_moita 10y ago

To me this all speaks "zeitgeist", the mindset of an era. This was New York in the 80s and 90s, the Rudy Giuliani era, "no broken windows", tough on crime mentality. The town was traumatized by more than a thousand murders every year. Everyone was desperate for convicts, from the voters to the attorneys, the politicians and jurors. No one had patience to "due process". It was a war. That era has been praised as a victory for law enforcement. Black Lives Matter and others are now showing the real cost of it. No wonder Giuliani freaks out about BLM.

PantaloonFlames 10y ago
"tough on crime" is not the same as "abandon due process". I challenge your view that jurors and voters would approve of abandoning due process. Sure they wanted convictions of criminals. But not at the cost of faked confessions, lying under oauth, false testimony by law enforcement. It's easy to see that leads to chaos. No one signed up for that, except the watchmen.

zeveb 10y ago

> Scarcella has never been prosecuted for his alleged malfeasance; the statute of limitations for perjury is five years. There's the problem. There shouldn't be a statute of limitations on police malfeasance any more than there is one on murder. Police officers who perjure themselves to obtain convictions should be executed.

Mz 10y ago

Happily, I found this article more positive than the comments here make it sound. The system is changing. People are being exonerated. These injustices are getting press. Obviously, it would be nice if injustice never occurred. But injustices do occur and it is far worse when we would rather pretend it doesn't happen than to own up and do what we can to redress them.